
Qass. 
Book. 



F • 



X 






SERMON 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



NATIONAL EVENTS 



BY 



REV. JAMES M. LUDLOW. 



SERMON 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



NATIONAL EVENTS, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y., 
APRIL 23d, 1865, 



BY THE PASTOR, 



REV. JAMES M. LUDLOW. 



ALBANY: 

WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1865. 



,8 



CORRESPOKDEjSTCE. 



„ , , x .„ , Albany, May 1st, 1865. 

Rev d James M. Ludlow : 

Dear Sir — The undersigued, members of your Church and Congregation, 
respectfully request that you would furnish, for publication, a copy of your late 
Sermon upon the teachings of the recent dispensations of Providence in our 
national affairs. 

Yours, &c, 

ALDEN MARCH. T. R. BOYD. 

ALFRED WILD. WILLIAM WHITE. 

FRANKLIN TOWNSEND. THOS. P. CROOK. 

B. P. LEARNED. WM. MITCHELL. 

D. D. T. CHARLES. S. McKISSICK. 



_ Albany, May bth, 1865. 

Gentlemen: 

I cheerfully place at your disposal the Discourse referred to in your note. 
With the exception of changes necessitated by the mode of its original prepa- 
ration, and the omission of a portion for the sake of brevity, the Sermon is 
substantially the same as delivered. Praying that its publication may be pro- 
ductive of good, 

I am, with high regard, 

Yours, 

JAMES M. LUDLOW. 
To Messrs. Boyd, March, and others. 



SERMON. 



Psalm cxvi : 12, 13, 14. — " What shall I render unto the Lord for 
all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of Salvation and call 
upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in 
the presence of all his people." 

I would not be justified in allowing any sentiments 
to tone the services of to-day, other than those 
inspired by the great events through which our 
nation is passing, and which fill your and the popu- 
lar heart. 

The sacred words we have selected to give direc- 
tion and definiteness to the thoughts which crowd 
the mind, were either the utterances of King David, 
when delivered from the rebellion of his son Absa- 
lom, or those of the ideal "Man of Judah," or 
" Daughter of Jerusalem," who represent the whole 
Jewish people, and thus express the national feeling 
upon liberation from Babylonish captivity. 

But to whatever event the Psalmist here alludes, 
the language seems eminently appropriate upon this 
occasion — and that for a double reason. In the first 
place, its tone testifies that it was uttered by one 



who appreciated the import of the event which 
suggested it, and whose words were moulded by 
sanctified lips. A second mark of its propriety is 
the accompaniment of sorrow, which blends with the 
notes of joy throughout the Psalm in which the text 
is found. There are tears in the singer's eyes, as 
well as gladness upon his tongue. The lips evidently 
tremble, and the voice is broken with remembered 
sadness, while he utters his thanksgiving. Mark such 
expressions as these: "The sorrows of death com- 
passed me " — "I found trouble and sorrow" — "I was 
greatly afflicted" — "Thou hast delivered my soul 
from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from 
falling." If King David here sings the triumph of 
loyal arms and the suppression of rebellion, he has 
not forgotten the lamentation so lately uttered : " O 
my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! Would 
God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my 
son !" Or if the other reference be regarded, surely 
the harp has lost much of its sweetness while hang- 
ing upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon, and 
the fingers have forgotten their skill during the 
dreary years of captivity. 

I confess that I do not understand the national 
spirit at this hour, if it be not moved with mingled 
feelings of deep gratitude to God for blessings con- 
ferred, and of sorrowful submission to the stroke of 
his affliction. The one pulse beats high with raptur- 



ous joy ; the other throbs slowly and painfully, as 
the blood passes drop by drop from a heart breaking 
with grief. The air is fraught with the tidings of 
victories, glorious victories for the nation, and for 
man ; and we have won a new and perennial crown 
for her whom we have chosen to be the symbol of 
our liberties and prowess ; but her brow aches with 
weeping; she cannot bear the honors now; she 
is prostrate upon the earth, clad in the weeds of 
mourning. It seemed enough that her sons had 
fallen in the midst of the battle; but as she drained 
that bitter cup, and was raising her thanksgiving to 
Heaven for the strength of His spirit who had sus- 
tained her during the years of agony, it was again 
filled to overflowing, and she is now fallen beneath 
the burden of the added grief. The assassin's work, 
as it was the legitimate offspring and appropriate 
symbol of the whole of this unhallowed rebellion, so 
it is its crowning act, its preeminent guilt, and is 
also the consummation of the nation's woes. 

Until this sorrow-swollen hour, there were portions 
of the country where the horrors of the contest were 
scarcely felt. There were spots undesolated, and 
homes unvisited by the cruelties of war. But now 
there is a great cry throughout the land, as in the 
night of Egyptian mourning, for there is not a house 
in which there is not one dead. The habiliments of 
woe drape the marts of commerce, the halls of legis- 



lation, the temples of religion, the dwellings alike 
of rich and poor ; even the pauper's penny, and the 
widow's mite have been expended in procuring some 
little testimonial of unfeigned grief. The mantle 
which covers the corpse of the martyred President, 
also envelopes the whole country over which in love 
he ruled ; and millions of devoted hearts are buried 
with him. 

But there is no need that we open afresh the 
wounds which time has begun to heal. God's hand, 
though laid heavily upon us, opens with many mer- 
cies. It is not right to nourish our grief, especially 
at the expense of gratitude which ought to be paid. 
If to any people there was ever given the obliga- 
tion and the incentive to praise, surely such words 
should be upon our lips, though they tremble with a 
different emotion ; and our eyes should be turned to 
heaven, though they glisten in the light, because suf- 
fused with tears. 

1. The prominent occasion of our mourning is itself 
circumstanced with much that can be contemplated 
only with sentiments of thanksgiving. Unless we 
mistake the providential design of this affliction, the 
shaft of God was no poisoned dart to make the wound 
rankle and fester in the days to come ; but the barb 
was dipped in that balm, which, under His providen- 
tial care, will prove its own healing. 



9 

The four years of Mr. Lincoln's administrative 

life have put upon American anuals a record of 
events, wrought out under his supervision, which 
are unrivaled in the brilliancy of their character 
and results by any that have appeared upon the 
historic page. They have secured for us an appa- 
rent destiny, whose glory only such patriot faith as 
his ever ventured to anticipate; and they have 
enthroned him in the estimation of the world, as 
the representative and the sacrifice for that which 
the good and the free everywhere hold most sacred 
and dear. 

And that for which he labored in life, may be 
hastened to its accomplishment by the fact and 
circumstances of his death. We have reason to 
hope that the bond of unity, at least in the loyal 
North, is more firmly cemented in his blood, than 
it could have been by the skill of the most con- 
summate statesmanship; while in the South, the 
last shred of plausible pretext is torn from the 
Confederate form, and the disgrace of its nakedness 
the outraged sensibilities of man will no longer 
endure. The blood of the martyr is apparently for 
the more speedy, and more thorough redemption, of 
the land in whose service it was spilt. 

But we must not, on this occasion, hold the mind 
to a consideration of this sad event, even in tracing 

the blessings which may flow from it. Glorious 

2 



10 

visions are opening upon the sight, though the 
rising curtain is black with the emblems of woe. 

2. We are evidently upon the eve of the cessation 
of war. The battle day, in all human probability, is 
done. The sun sets gloriously, and, although its 
rays are red as reflected from the crimson sea, they 
are the harbingers of its speedy rising with a new 
and more cheerful light. 

It is our faith to believe that in the capture of the 
strongholds of rebellion, there was surrendered to us 
a monster power, who, acting as the executive and 
right hand of treason, has for four years with bloody 
sceptre ruled the land, and scourged its people. 
We may not immediately recover from the blows we 
have received in the contest ; years may pass before 
the national system, by its own recuperative energy, 
will regain its original strength and integrity. But 
of this we are assured ; the hand is now still that 
has broken us. We cannot wake to life the loved 
ones who sleep in unmarked graves beneath the 
southern clod ; but that valley of death will receive 
into its bosom little more such precious dust. The 
task set before us as a nation has been sufficient- 
ly accomplished by those already gone. Their dying 
breath has purified the whole southern air, and their 
dust has made forever sacred the southern soil. The 
walls of Libby, and the prison-fields of Anderson ville 
will remain forever in historic remembrance, as a 



11 

disgrace to the American character, and the Ameri- 
can name ; but, like the confederacy of which their 
barbarism and cruelty are so emblematic, they are 
practically erased from present and future existence. 
The faces pale from incipient starvation, and the 
bodies lacerated by the missiles of the battle-field, 
will not at once depart from our streets; but no 
more shall be added to the number of those who so 
sadly represent our national misfortunes. The sword 
shall no longer reap the harvests of death ; but the 
scythe shall gather the rich and teeming fields of 
life. The pomp and circumstance of war will give 
place to the thrift and bustle of useful enterprise. 
Our harbors will be reopened, our cities rebuilt, our 
desert places again made glad with smiling homes, 
and our whole land be filled with a people more 
appreciative of the blessings they enjoy, more honest 
in their conceptions of national and individual rights, 
and more determined in their patriotic devotion. 

But the benefits we are now receiving from God 
are not comprehended in the one word, peace. The 
civil war has terminated in our victory. AVe dare 
not boast of the humiliation of the proud foe we 
have discomfited, nor that the prowess of the 
national arms has been so matchlessly vindicated ; 
but we may indulge a legitimate joy in the accom- 
plishment of practical results, which shall minister 
to the cause of right, humanity and the national 
weal. 



12 

3. We rejoice in the prospective restoration of the 
land to its unity. 

There have been many hours of darkness in this 
conflict, when, had it not been sustained by an 
unshaken confidence in a stronger arm than ours, 
the popular heart had fainted, the cause had been 
abandoned, and peace obtained at the cost of na- 
tional dissolution. God has supplied to us strength 
in our weakness, courage in our fears, and inspired 
us with faith which seemed like a belief in Ameri- 
can destiny; and thus He has sustained us until 
the time of His appointment to give the vic- 
tory. How different now the prospect from that 
which stared us in the face a year ago, in the 
event of the then cessation of war ! No nation of 
opposing interest, whose increase could be secured 
only in our territorial diminution, and whose stability 
would require the practical denial of our whole gov- 
ernmental policy, now watches us, jealous of our 
prosperity and our life. No bulwarks of fire, or 
lines to be j)assed only with surveillance and dis- 
honorable concessions, mark the rending of a once 
glorious heritage. No challenge, insulting to the 
national spirit which God has given us, is belched 
forth from frowning fortresses within our own bor- 
ders, requiring the lowering of the national emblem 
in obeisance to traitor power, compelling us to crave 
permission to sail our commerce upon our own rivers, 



13 

and to pay a disgraceful duty upon shipments be- 
tween our own ports. The land is undivided and 
indivisible, amply protected by one shield, and will 
soon repose in prosperity beneath the bright stars 
and broad stripes of one flag. 

4. Another cause of joy in connection with the 
victories which a favoring Providence has given us, 
is the fact that they have been achieved by the power, 
and in the name of the general government. 

The fall of Sumter witnessed the uprising of the 
mass of the people, but they rallied with unreserved 
devotion around the standard of the national execu- 
tive. The million streams of the popular force were 
poured upon rebellion through one channel, which 
thus became the acknowledged representative, as 
well as the natural conduit of them all. 

That act was not the centralization of power, but 
was the popular resolve to practicalize the power 
already constitutionally vested in the central gov- 
ernment. The manifestation of that spirit, kindled 
as we believe, by the breath of the Almighty, has 
proved to be the only, but sure defense of the na- 
tion's right, integrity and honor. 

We have been endangered more than once, by a 
slowness to concede to the national executive suffi- 
cient power for its own protection. Our own sad 
experience, as well as the history of other nations, 
lias taught us our mistake. But, thauk God, the 



14 

popular error has been remedied in its own appli- 
cation. The war on the part of the rebellious states 
was its boldest manifestation ; but, like certain dis- 
eases, it has come to the surface only to insure its 
more speedy removal. This very issue has been for- 
ever settled, in the result of the southern appeal to 
arms for the defense of alleged state rights. That 
fallacious assumption, as a principle in American 
government, has been blown away by the rising 
sentiment of American nationality. It was put to 
flight with the armies of the rebellion it excited, and 
whose crimes it has sought to extenuate. God has 
told us in these events, that he threw us together 
into no confederacy of independent communities ; 
but that He made us to be a nation, that we might 
wield an unbroken power for the accomplishment of 
His glory in the earth. We are a nation. In these 
words we read the Divine commission, the promise 
of our strength; and, if that strength be rightly 
used, the lease of perpetuity. 

5. And we are a free nation. The expression is 
more significant to-day than at the commencement 
of our tribulations. God's hand has broken fetters 
which crippled the spirit of the whole people, and 
the nation has risen up in nobler, because freer, 
manhood. It now rejoices like a strong man to run 
the race of its prescribed destiny, because it feels 
that its limbs are no longer impeded by an anti- 



15 

quated system of society, from which the world 
is fast cutting- loose — only the most degraded 
nations now consort with domestic bondage — and 
the back is unburdened of a curse which was bend- 
ing the form to the earth. Whatever may have been 
our views of this institution in the past, all parties 
can unite in present action. The most radical eman- 
cipationist will yield thus much to the most ardent 
admirer of the system, that they shall give to 
slavery so decent a burial, that hereafter no relic 
shall be exposed as an offense in the sight of 
humanity, or to spread its malaria through the 
world. We are called upon to rejoice in our nation's 
liberation from a bondage of which the African in 
his chains and disgrace is but the representative. 
The Republic is enfranchised. Although it cannot 
obliterate the past dark record, any more than its 
victim can change his skin, yet it may now utter a 
consistent and unchallenged voice in the councils 
for popular liberty, whose deliberations are shaking 
the pillars of the political earth. Our past incon- 
sistency necessarily prevented the hearty affection 
and unreserved confidence of the watchers of free- 
dom, as they toiled among the nations. But the 
declaration of sacred writ, "Proclaim liberty through- 
out the land unto all the inhabitants thereof!" which 
was so lately and so reverently uttered by loved 
lips now sealed in death ; the hearty amen that 



16 

springs into expression on millions of tongues ; 
and its rapid fulfillment through the military arm, 
have made the morning stars of freedom sing 
together and the sons of liberty shout for joy. We 
were heretofore the anxious study, the tearful hope 
of the down-trodden. We have now sprung into the 
van, and are leading the march of the grand army 
of God, in accomplishing the command, " Break 
every yoke, and let the oppressed go free!" We are 
a free nation within our own borders, and are the 
emblem, it may be the instrument, for the establish- 
ment of freedom throughout the earth. 

6. We are a Christian nation. We cannot read 
the record of our establishment in the religious 
faith of the founders of our republic, nor the pages 
of our history since, without a deep conviction 
of the constant keeping of a Covenant God. We 
have passed through trials, the entrance upon 
which was declared by the political sages of the 
world, to be the mad courting and the beginning of 
an inevitable doom. We have called for the sword 
at times when, had we calmly questioned our own 
strength, we would have felt too weak to bear the 
weapons of war. But we were impelled to it by 
the irresistible spirit of Him who would show Himself 
to be the strong defense and deliverer of His people. 
As the Israelites of old, we have conquered, not in 
our own strength, but through us as an instrument- 



17 

ality, "His right hand, and His holy arm, have 
gotten Him the victory." 

Nor have we been totally wanting in fulfilling the 
conditions of this covenant relationship. The leaven 
of individual piety is felt in every department of our 
national and social system. Good men everywhere 
have walked with God. and the land is hallowed with 
the imprint of His footsteps. In victory and defeat, in 
prosperity and adversity, it has become the national 
custom, tenaciously held as essential to our preser- 
vation, to raise the notes of thanksgiving or prayer. 
We mourn by the altar in the sanctuary of Christ, 
and we utter our joy in expressions of gratitude, 
made acceptable in the name of our Mediator and 
Eedeemer. War is the mark of a still unregenerate 
earth, but is not itself the proof of an unchristian 
people. The history of the first chosen race forbids 
such assumption. See the army of those who have 
gone into the field, inspired only with patriotism and 
the love of Jesus, following the track of war, like 
a detachment from the angelic host, laden with 
heavenly mercies for body and soul, for friend and 
foe ! May the Commission that performed its labors 
in the name of Christ, be the emblem of all our 
country's hosts as they go forth in the cause of 
humanity, and devote themselves to King Immanuel, 



18 

as "free-will offerings," clad in the "beauties of 
holiness," for the redemption of the world ! 

But we cannot dwell longer in enumerating the 
blessings, of which a benignant Providence assures 
us in the events of the hour. " What shall we ren- 
der unto the Lord for all His benefits toward us ? " 
Mark the reply which God puts upon our lips. 
" We will take the cup of salvation and call upon 
the name of the Lord. We will pay our vows unto 
the Lord now in the presence of all His people." 

The cup is used to designate one's lot in life. 
There is the cup of sorrow, and the cup of joy. We 
will take the " cup of salvation," for of such a 
nature, most notedly, is the dealing of God with us, 
and will " call upon the name of the Lord,'''' in simple 
acknowledgment that all these things are from His 
hand. He has broken us, and He has healed us. 
" Thou dost make us glad according to the days 
wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein 
we have seen evil." 

And "We will pay our voivs unto the Lord now in 
the presence of all His people." Before the nations 
of the earth, and in the presence of the principali- 
ties of Heaven whom we call to witness, let us 
devote ourselves, as individuals and as a redeemed 
people, unreservedly, in prayer, in labor, and in 
sacrifice, to the cause of right — in the language of 
the lamented chief, "as God shall give us to see the 



19 

right ; " and whether He utters His voice in the de- 
mands of patriotism, or of piety, let us take the 
words of the Great Martyr for righteousness and 
human redemption, "Lo we come, to do Thy will, 
O God ! " 

By the vows of the Lord, cannot be meant simply 
the promises for the future, which have found ex- 
pression on the tongue in the day of our troubles, 
nor those definitely framed in the secret resolution 
of the soul ; but rather, all the obligations which 
our patriotic or Christian profession, now or here- 
after, shall put upon us. 

It may be profitable to consider briefly some of 
the duties of the present, which God has taught us 
while under the rod, and to apply our hearts to 
His righteous precepts, which have been so severely 
enforced with judgments. 

1. We have alluded to the virtual abolition of the 
institution of slavery, as one result of the contest 
in which we have been engaged. Death is evi- 
dently its doom, unless, by most shameful folly, we 
again nurse it into life. 

We cannot mistake the voice of God, uttered 
in the thunders of the war, nor run counter to the 
deep conviction which is forced into the hearts of 
the people, when we declare this system of bondage 
to be an offense in the sight of heaven, as well as a 
curse in the condition of men. For, whatever may 



20 

be our opinion as to the inherent wrong of the abso- 
lute possession, by any human being, of the powers 
and prerogatives of manhood which God has given 
to another, the institution, as here operative, has 
proved itself to be an evil, both to the community 
and to the individual. Like the Upas tree, it trans- 
forms the paradise of public prosperity into the 
desert of death. It degrades all who are concerned 
therein, the master as well as, aye — have we not 
been taught it in the dreadful things of the war — 
more than the slave. As an evil, whatever we may 
work ourselves up to believe as to its original right, 
its defense or extension become sin. It is a crime 
to magnify the most innocent misfortune. It is an 
outrageous wrong to retard, in any manner, the 
operation of any relief for the least calamity. And 
now, when God's providence, working with us during 
these four years of agony, has so determined it, that 
the lifting of this cloud, fraught with pestilence and 
dropping with woes to North and South, awaits only 
the breathing of the popular voice, surely that man 
is to be pitied who is so trammeled by any tie, 
political or social, that he must choke back an 
utterance which is prompted by the spirit both of 
the hour and of right. I believe it to be a sacred 
duty of every patriot Christian — and therefore as a 
Christian minister do I speak it — which he owes to 
himself, to his country, to his age and to his God, by 



21 

voice, by vote and by deed, to make an effectual 
protestation that not another hour of unrequited toil 
shall be exacted, nor another demand of the lash 
heard in the land. 

% But let us beware, lest in the zeal of our con- 
demnation of this enormity, which overshadows us 
from the South, we overlook many and grievous 
sins, which darken more literally our own doors. 

We have no right to denounce ourselves as a na- 
tion of drunkards, or sabbath-breakers, or defiers of 
the Deity — such we have never been as a people. 
Nor is our political practice one mass of corruption, 
as unwise reformers have painted it. But we cannot 
doubt that intemperance, covetousness, the desecra- 
tion of the Lord's Day. the profanation of the Holy 
Name among all grades of our society, and the essen- 
tial perjury which abounds in official stations, have 
done much to bring upon our heads the retributive 
justice of Heaven. 

It is not unwarrantable to suppose, that had the 
evils enumerated been unknown in the councils of 
those who assumed the direction of political affairs ; 
had the speech never been redolent with odors of 
the still ; had the hand not held at the same time 
the bribe and the pen ; had the hours of holiest light 
never been blasphemously devoted to the secret po- 
litical conclave ; or had prayers taken the place of 
oaths, this rebellion that has broken us would not 



22 

have found an opportunity for its inception, nor the 
assassin's arm been nerved to its dastardly deed. 
Oh, that we had adhered to the teachings of this 
Sacred Book, which the fathers gave us together 
with our revered Constitution! That we had heeded 
its warning! "It is not for Kings to drink wine, 
nor for Princes strong drink." (Prov. xxxi, 4.) " O 
thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant 
in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure 
of thy covetousness" (Jer. li, 13.) "The King, 
by judgment, established the land ; but he that 
receiveth gifts overthroiveth it." (Prov. xxix, 4.) "If 
thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my Holy Day, and shall call 
the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor Him, 
I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy 
father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
(Isaiah, lviii, 13, 14.) 

3. Another duty which has been taught us by the 
course of the war, and is now so sadly enjoined at 
the moment of its termination, is that of peacefully 
submitting to, and cheerfully sustaining the powers 
which God has ordained ; not in fear, " but also for 
conscience sake." 

The most successful opponent to liberty, we are 
persuaded, by its historical record, is lawlessness. 
Under all popular forms of legislation, anarchy is 



23 

the tyrant's only opportunity. There is more to 
be feared from the spirit of disobedience, which is 

excited by expressions of distrust in the national 
Executive, and by clamorous threatenings of popular 
vengeance, if he transgress, in the least, the bounds 
of delegated authority, than from all the power any 
Executive, in a pure Republic, ever dared to assume. 
Which, to-day, is the tyrant most to be dreaded by 
the American people ; the spirit that rilled the 
breast of Abraham Lincoln, even if, in his zeal 
to preserve the whole, he did, as is claimed, 
overstep some part of the Constitution, or the 
opposing one that instigated the deed of its repre- 
sentative, John Wilkes Booth? The despot in a 
Eepublic is not the one man invested with tem- 
porary i>ower. It is rather that hundred-handed 
demon, armed with as many assassin's knives, who 
feeds upon the popular discontent, and only awaits 
the opportunity to spring upon the throne of na- 
tional ruin. It is the sacred duty of every citizen 
not merely to demand the infliction of justice upon 
committed crime, but to rebuke its incentive in the 
first breathings of discontent. The mob of baser 
passions is seldom, if ever, found on the side of 
constitutional authority. The semblance of order 
is its antipathy. It only awaits the first restless 
moviugs of the honest and true, when, already 
drunk with its own hendishness, it cries "Death !" 



24 

and "To the plunder!" A drop of blood will 
madden the hound, which else might lie quietly 
within the fold. A spark will explode this mine, 
which is always laid in the lower strata of Repub- 
lican society. 

4. Another duty, the penalty of whose omission we 
are now suffering, is that of watchfulness and activity 
on the part of good men, in exercising the functions 
of their citizenship. There are many whom we could 
esteem as the salt of the earth, were it not that they 
fall far short of performing the duties of common pa- 
triotism. They are the salt ; but they have little savor 
of usefulness, when their actions are regarded in res- 
pect to their influence upon the political prosperity of 
the community, the state, or the nation. " Eternal vi- 
gilance is the price of liberty." But how many rights 
have been taken away, how many defenses of public 
morality, of private virtue, have been cast down, 
while their defenders, on the plea of Christian sepa- 
ration from the world, have refused to utter their 
voice or cast a vote. We are now awaking to a 
dreadful reality, to find the hands of truth and purity 
and Christian principle tied by many a cord, and the 
reins of control, more especially in our large towns and 
cities, held by " bold, bad men," who have nothing to 
lose, but everything to gain, in the gratification of 
their ambition for power and their greed of spoil. Let 
over scrupulous piety be reminded that it has not 



25 

yet reached the heavenly estate. This is the life of 
labor, and of conflict with the foe. We have no right 
to surrender a single stronghold, while there remains 
in us a single power. The battle day and the battle 
dust must be endured, if any would be found good 
and faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ. The political 
world, when the kingdom of righteousness is therein 
threatened, is an appropriate field for the display of 
Christian valor and prowess. The ballot is itself a 
gift of God ; personal influence, affecting in any way 
the public weal, is a talent which He will require. 
Our liberties are endangered, we have been largely 
despoiled of those things which should be dearer 
than its own blood to the Christian patriot's heart, 
by the lawlessness of bad men, allowed to be effec- 
tive by the negligence of the good. 

5. But we must pass to a final obligation which 
patriotism imposes. A personal Christianity is the 
duty of the citizen. This we will show by a simple 
enumeration of what is implied therein. First, it 
gives him the only sure and practical test of right 
and wrong. It sets up in his heart a felt standard 
of divine morality. Its promise and tendency are 
to sanctify the judgment, and to rectify the con- 
science. If true to its demands, it binds him in loy- 
alty, until the voice of God, speaking in unmistak- 
able providences, declares loyalty to be sin ; and 
thus he becomes, by force of inward principle, the 



26 

defender of right, the promoter of public peace. 
Secondly, his Christianity insures the efficacy of his 
prayer. We have been taught, in many ways, during 
the progress of our national conflict, that vain is the 
help of man ; our strength is in the arm of a higher 
power. But no man cometh to the Father, save 
through acceptable faith in the Son. Faith, uttering 
its petitions in the name of Jesus, is the power that 
moves the hand that moves the world. Thirdly, the 
fact of Christianity among the inhabitants is the 
safety of the land. For His people's sake the Lord 
will have mercy. Peradventure there be the leaven 
of righteousness there, He will not destroy it. 

We have thus endeavored to trace the movings of 
the divine hand, which, though stretched out for our 
chastisement, has borne to us many and precious 
blessings. We have repeated the inspired injunction, 
to bow reverently in submission to the judgment 
of God, and in grateful acknowledgment of His mer- 
cies, and we have urged the faithful discharge of all 
the obligations which are thus put upon us. But let 
us look a moment beyond the veil. Before the Ee- 
public shall rise up from its present calamities, or 
lay aside the robes of its sadness, many of us shall be 
borne to our long home, and our mourners shall go 
about the streets. The citizen's name will no longer 
be called ; the Christian's profession will be forgot- 
ten. With only what we are, and what we have 



27 

done, we will stand in the presence of our Saviour 
and Judge. May we then, whatever may have been 
the sphere of duty to which He has here assigned 
us, receive the reward of loyalty to the right, and 
acceptable service to Him! 



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